The world’s shipping chokepoints, live
Nearly all seaborne trade squeezes through about twenty straits and canals. This map shows how many ships are moving through each one this week, compared with its own recent norm, from satellite-AIS data published by the IMF. A sustained drop usually means vessels are diverting, congestion is building, or the route is disrupted.
Tip: the list below is sorted by traffic volume. Select any chokepoint, on the map or in the list, for its vessel mix and a 90-day trend.
| Chokepoint | Vessels per day (7-day mean) | 90-day baseline | Change vs baseline |
|---|
Source & method
Data: IMF PortWatch : daily vessel-transit counts for major maritime chokepoints, derived from satellite AIS. The map fetches it live; if the feed is unreachable it shows the committed snapshot (CSV), dated on the status line above.
Method: for each chokepoint, current = the mean of the last 7 available days; baseline = the mean of the last ~90 available days; the figure shown is current / baseline − 1. A 90-day trailing baseline (rather than PortWatch’s all-time average) keeps a months-old change in the feed’s coverage from distorting “vs normal”.
- This is an observed traffic index, not a forecast or a probability of closure.
- PortWatch’s AIS coverage varies by chokepoint; a few with a sparse series (their absolute counts are implausibly low) are excluded. Read the % change as the signal, not the raw count.
- Marker positions are approximate strait/canal midpoints.
Licence: this page and its derived CSV are CC BY 4.0. Underlying data © IMF PortWatch, used under its open terms.